Since my Cube could not run Leopard, and I did not have any other Macs, I was unable to delve into Leopard right away. Apple NL was kind enough to fix this problem for us, by generously loaning me a brand new MacBook with Leopard installed so I could review it for OSNews. Read on for the findings.

No, that isn't true. HTML email is a lot more bloated than plaintext. It's over double the size alone just for an HTML formatted message.

Yes, because sane email programs send you both plain text and the html.
The argument that it eats up bandwidth is bullshit though. It's not 1990 anymore, the few Kb email takes is a drop in the ocean compared to the bandwidth taken up by , for example, browsing osnews or youtube or myspace etc etc.
It's not mine or anyone else's problem that your ISP is screwing you by metering your bandwidth.
Sure, HTML mail can suck badly when people go overboard but so can anything else. It's not an HTML mail problem, it's a people problem.